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Why keep my keys private?

A study from the North Carolina State University found that thousands of sensitive information, including API keys, are leaked every day on Github. It's bad practice to hard-code your private keys in your project, as hackers can steal them, use them and, eventually, maximize your number of requests quota. In some extreme cases, if the API is linked to your credit card, and the hackers go over your quota, your credit card can be charged.

Create the .env file

To solve this potential issue, avoid hard-coding keys in your project and store them in a .env file. Create a new file, called .env, at the root level of your project. This is where we'll store all of our API keys.

Env file

Add to gitignore

Once you added the file, you'll see that the title of the file is in green, meaning that you'll still be committing this file if you commit to Github now. It's important to add it to your .gitignore file, to tell Github to ignore this file when committing.

git ignore

Once you add .env to the .gitignore file, you'll see that the .env file's title becomes grey, meaning that Github will ignore it.

Add your environment variables

In the newly created .env file, add all your environment variables. Here's an example of how you should add them:

MY_API_KEY=1234567abcdef

By default, all environment variables are only available in NodeJS, to prevent exposing sensitive information to hackers. If you wish to expose your environment variables to the browser, for example an API URL that isn't really secret, you'll need to prefix each key with a few words, depending on the platform you're using:

  • REACTAPP for a create-react-app-application;
  • GATSBY_ for a Gatsby application;
  • NEXTPUBLIC for a NextJS application;

For example, for a create-react-app application, I'll save the following not secret code in my .env file, to expose it to the browser (and be able to call it from my frontend):

REACT_APP_NOT_SECRET_KEY=1234567abcdef

Access your environment variables

You might need to restart your server when you change something in your .env file to see the changes reflected. You can access your environment variables that are exposed to the browser with:

process.env.REACT_APP_NOT_SECRET_KEY

Please note that environment variables without a prefix won't be accessible from the browser. They'll return undefined.

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react-hooks-handbook-environment-variables

1

Intro to React Hooks

An overview of React Hooks and the frameworks you can use to build your React application blazingly fast

3:39

2

Create your first React app

Create your first React project from the Terminal and save it on your local computer

4:23

3

React Component

Create your first JSX component using React

2:54

4

Styling in React

How to style your React components using inline styling, separate stylesheets or styled-components

5:06

5

Styles and Props

Render different styles depending on different properties passed to your component

2:22

6

Understanding Hooks

Learn about the basics of React Hooks, which introduced at React Conf 2018

3:21

7

useState Hook

Use the useState hook to manage local state in your React component

2:54

8

useEffect Hook

Manage with your component's lifecycle with the useEffect hook

3:41

9

useRef Hook

Learn about the useRef hook, which replaces the JavaScript getElementById way

3:00

10

Props

Learn about props in React to pass data from parent to child components

3:11

11

Conditional Rendering

Render different UIs depending on different conditions and states

4:21

12

Load Local Data

Load local JSON data into your React application

4:04

13

Fetch Data from an API

Learn the basics of asynchronous functions and promises by fetching data from an API using fetch, useEffect and useState

5:40

14

Toggle a state

Learn how to toggle a state from true to false and back again

4:05

15

useInput Hook

Create a hook to get the value and the onChange event of input fields

6:04

16

Gatsby and React

Create a static content-oriented website using React on Gatsby

6:44

17

NextJS and React

Create your first NextJS React application

5:24

18

React TypeScript Part 1

Learn how to create a React TypeScript application using the Create React App, Gatsby and NextJS methods

8:19

19

React TypeScript Part 2

Learn the basics of TypeScript and how to use TypeScript in a React component

7:35

20

useScrollPosition Hook

Create a custom hook to listen to the current window position of the user

4:26

21

useOnScreen hook

Create a custom hook to listen to when an element is visible on screen

8:08

22

useContext Hook

Manage global states throughout the entire application

8:32

23

Fragments

Group multiple children together with React Fragments

2:43

24

Lazy Loading

Lazy Load heavy components to improve performance

4:05

25

React Suspense

Wait for data with React Suspense and React.lazy

3:13

26

Environment Variables

Make environment variables secret with a .env file

4:43

27

Reach Router

Create a multiple-pages React application with Reach Router

5:31

28

URL Params

Create unique URL with URL Params

4:04

29

SEO and Metadata

Optimize a React application for search engines with React Helmet

6:47

30

Favicon

Add an icon to a React website

3:03

31

Dynamic Favicon

Change the favicon's fill color depending on the user's system appearance

2:14

32

PropTypes

Implement props type-checking with PropTypes

3:54

33

Custom PropTypes

Create a custom PropType using a validator function

3:58

34

useMemo Hook

Prevent unnecessary re-renders when the component stays the same

4:05

35

forwardRef Hook

Forward a ref to a child component

3:28

36

Handling Events

How to handle events in React

5:44

37

Spread attributes

Learn how to make use of the spread operator

3:35

38

useMousePosition Hook

Detect the user's mouse position on a bound element

4:55

39

useReducer with useContext Part 1

Create a reducer to be used in a context

7:33

40

useReducer with useContext Part 2

Incorporate useReducer with useContext

6:48

41

useReducer with useContext Part 3

Connect the context and reducer with the frontend

5:43

42

Netlify

Deploy to production using Netlify

5:08

43

Gatsby Cloud

Deploy to production using Gatsby Cloud

6:19

44

Gatsby Plugin Image

Use gatsby-plugin-image for automatic image resizing, formatting, and higher performance

8:11

45

useOnClickOutside Hook

Toggle a modal visibility with a useOnClickOutside hook

6:32

46

useWindowSize Hook

Create a hook to determine the width and height of the window

4:14

47

usePageBottom hook

Detect if the user scrolled to the bottom of the page

4:48

48

useLocalStorage Hook

Store an item in a browser's local storage

5:27

49

Three.js in React Part 1

Bring your website to life with beautiful 3D objects

17:33

50

Three.js in React Part 2

Bring your website to life with beautiful 3D objects

11:18